Fractions
by sunpeel
Summary: Drabbles of varying lengths and differing moods. Latest chapter: 8059.
1. Chapter 1

**instant karma**

**pairing: yamagoku**

Gokudera didn't believe in karma. Shit happened, then you died- sure, there was that murky space in between the shit happening and the dying parts, but that was the general gist. Why would he go out of his way to avoid shit happening to other people (besides the tenth) when he had his own ass to cover? Dumb asses should learn to take care of themselves, that's was he thought. Karma, generally, was a useless notion.

Until one day, for some stupid, unknown reason, his reflexes had developed a tic- he had caught Yamamoto's ice cream cone, right side up, seconds before it had hit the pavement. He stared at the ice cream in horror, then at Yamamoto's laughing, stupid face with a mix of horror and anger.

"This doesn't mean anything, you goddamn freak," He growled, shoving the melting cone into the taller boy's awaiting palm, fingers grazing.

The next day Yamamoto brought him a plastic-wrapped sundae, fresh from the corner grocery, and he took it without a word. He didn't drop it, though.

**on the radio**

**pairing: yamagoku**

It was on the radio that Gokudera heard news of a baseball player with a perfect record, an impeccable winning streak. He stopped to listen, his hands unconsciously setting down the stack of papers he had been sorting through, feet crossing and uncrossing beneath the thick desk.

The player, barely a man, had broken into the major league circuit with an unbreakable grin and a good way about him. He was the star of Japan's sports teams. He had endless potential, talent, charm. He was engaged to a beautiful young-

Fucking traitor, that's what he was.

There was no unbroken piece of furniture in Gokudera's office five minutes after the broadcast.

**gravity kills**

**pairing: yamagoku**

It was a pretty shitty week, in Gokudera's opinion. He was nursing a horrible, leaking cold that made his back ache and his lungs wheeze, as well as a horrible haircut from an explosives test gone wrong (five fucking inches of burnt hair had to be shorn off after that incident, leaving Gokudera to grasp and twist at the remaining mess with palmfuls of gel in attempts to salvage it into something that didn't make him look like a total douche). Even his cigarettes had abandoned him- the store wouldn't be getting that brand in stock in a week. He felt like a wreck, looked like a wreck, probably was a wreck, but he would get over it.

"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said one morning as they walked to school, eyes studying his friend cautiously. "You should take a day off, or... maybe two, you know?"

"I'll be okay, Tenth!" Gokudera assured Tsuna after a few wracking sneezes, nose leaking all over his face and chin. He whimpered and wiped at himself with his hand without thinking, then proceeded to hack up a lung.

"G-gokudera!" Tsuna shouted, horrified at his friend's abysmal, leaky state. "You really need to go home-"

"It's just the weather, Tenth, I swear!" Gokudera exclaimed, both hands covering his face.

"Haha, I agree with Tsuna. You look pretty sad," A new voice said, adding to the swirl of events. Gokudera growled through his snotty hands, metaphorical hackles raising on instinct at Yamamoto's easy laughter.

"I never asked your opinion, you ass," Gokudera snarled, standing up straight and trying his best to not look like a wet kitten. He turned to Tsuna, who was looking at him like he was something contagious. He probably was. Gokudera frowned and swiped at his raw nose, looking incredibly pathetic to any and all onlookers.

"Fine, I'll go home. But only for you, Tenth." Gokudera was quick to interject, shooting a glare at Yamamoto. He turned heel and shoved his hands in his pockets, trudging back towards his apartment. Then he must have tripped or something (though the sidewalk was perfectly even), because the next moment he was up in the air, pulled against gravity towards a warm, firm chest.

"You look like you need someone to walk you home," Yamamoto supplied cheerily, somehow dodging a direst punch to the face. "Haha, don't worry. Tsuna will be fine walking to school alone!"

Gokudera opened his mouth to argue this (or scream for help), but all that came from his mouth was a cough, a sneeze, and a sad sound.

"I hate you," he muttered finally, a fact.

"I make amazing chicken soup," Yamamoto reassured, climbing the stairs to Gokudera's apartment.

**stop whispering, start shouting**

**pairing: yamagoku**

Gokudera never told Yamamoto that he was sexy in a suit. That he looked long and lean and eatable when he wore nothing but a towel and he looked classy in a button-up. These thoughts, he had assumed, were the kind you just didn't say out loud, especially to over-excitable idiots. Yamamoto might get the wrong idea (which would actually be the right idea).

So Gokudera never told Yamamoto black was his color (as was dark red, blue, purple), or that those Gucci sunglasses (the aviators, with the gold rims) he wore on sunny days drove him crazy. He didn't need to know.

Well, until

Until Squalo, loud and slinking and whythefuckwashehere, flat out told Yamamoto that 'those leather pants suited him, really, braaaaat'. It was just one sentence out of a day of family business (financial and departmental issues to be sorted through, needing consent from all corners of the family- even the Varia), yet it clung to Gokudera's mind, making him glower and hiss and smoke like a chimney.

At the end of the day it was just himself and Yamamoto, standing in Tsuna's office while their boss took a break to get some aspirin (it had been a long, long day)

"Those pants," Gokudera said, "They are horrible."

"Ahaha," Yamamoto replied, shifting from one hip to the other. "You think."

"I like your suits better." Gokuder said quietly. "Or those jeans, with the holes. Button ups." He was mumbling.

"What?" Yamamoto asked, genuinely confused. "I didn't-"

"You look good in a towel, too," Gokudera said to the window pane, face crimson.

Yamamoto blinked, then laughed. Gokudera never saw those pants again after that night. The towel was another story.

**5**

It was three days after the incident that Yamamoto scraped up the balls to breach the subject with Gokudera, who had retained a look of amazingly unhappy shell-shock for the entire duration.

"I'm sure Tsuna know what he's doing," Yamamoto said blatantly, gently. Even he knew that a wrong word could earn him a grenade to the kidney. This was... delicate ground.

Gokudera looked at him, eyes wide and lips trembling. The cigarette in his hand slipped through his fingers and hit the carpet with a sizzle, followed shortly by Yamamoto's shoe grinding the flame out. Ah, shit. Gokudera was giving him that scarred look again, the same look he had been getting since... well.

"I mean, he's been acting happy, right? Haha, I trust him to make good d..." Yamamoto frowned. Gokudera had dropped to the floor and was well on his way to the fetal position.

Yamamoto sighed and kneeled, patting Gokudera on the head, trying to see his friend's eyes under his balled up hands.

"If anything, think of how safe he is! I mean, Hibari and Mukuro are really strong, right?"

Gokudera began to rock back and forth, his mantra of 'tenthtenthtenth' barely discernable.

"... I'll...." Yamamoto was at a loss. "You think... they'll be up to a fivesome, then?"

Gokudera surprised him. There was no grenade to the kidney. There was, however, a designer, black snake-skin shoe to the face.

**the last question**

**pairing: yamagoku**

"Now the last question," Yamamoto said seriously, eyes meeting Gokudera's above the flaps of a shaking cardboard box. "Is what we name it."

"How about lunch?" Gokudera said sullenly, sitting back and crossing his arms. "Uri's going to tear that thing apart the second we bring it into base, you retard."

Yamamoto shrugged, a silent 'no way'. "I think he can hold his own, haha," He replied in a non-aggresive tone. "Let's name him Fluffy."

Gokuder sat up, eyes glinting. "No way in hell! What a pansy name! We're naming it Killer or something cool, not fucking Fluffy!"

Yamamot frowned. "Killer sounds too mean. I mean, look at it, it's so..."

Gokudera looked into the box, trying his hardest to frown mightily upon the little mop of fluff that was curled in the corner, sleeping. "I looks like a dirty mop, to be honest," he said gruffly. It was so damn cute.

"Mop?" Yamamoto asked, perking up. "Mop's a good name, haha!"

"What the fuck are you on?!" Gokudera grabbed the box, pulling it towards himself as if to protect the little life inside it from the horrible name taking shape. "Mop is the worst name ever!"

Yamamoto stood up and peered into the box, it's contents awake and yipping from the movement. "Hi there, Mop!"

A series of small barks erupted from the box, making Yamamoto's face light up like a damn christmas tree. "See? It loves it!"

Gokudera looked between the puppy and Yamamoto, ready to launch some nasty retort when- oh, jesus, not the dog, too-

Crushed under the weight of two puppy-eyed stares, Gokudera relented, sitting back into the firm leather of the limo seat. "Fucking Mop," he conceded gruffly, lighting a smoke.

**collateral damage**

**pairing: yamagoku**

"That vase was a very expensive heirloom," Tsuna told them with a sigh, "As was the was the wardrobe, the mirror, the bedframe, the..." He leaned into this hand with a long breath, massaging the bridge of hise nose.

Yamamoto and Gokudera looked decidedly guilting, shifting before his desk like two kids in a principal's office.

"I apologize from the bottom of my heart, Tenth," Gokudera began earnestly, words rushing from his mouth like a dam bursting open. "I-"

Tsuna held his hand up, eyes not yet open. He looked tired. "Don't apologize to me. Apologize to the Larosa family, who is asking us over a million for damages."

Gokudera looked away, miserable.

"I just. I just don't." Tsuna leaned back into his chair, spinning half to the left, then to the right, then center again. "How did you.... You said it was an accident, Yamamoto-kun, But this is the third time you and Gokudera-kun have had something like this happen. Can't you two... be..." He went scarlet. "Gentler?" This was said in a tiny voice and seasoned with a wince.

Gokudera looked like he wanted to jump out a window.

"I heard Hibari and Mukuro have done some pretty interesting things to hotel rooms," Yamamoto pointed out, looking a little chagrined despite the easygoing grin.

"Do you want to ask them to pay for it?" Tsuna asked gravely, looking at Yamamoto like he should know better than to even bring something like that up. "Because I don't."

""I'm so sorry, Tenth," Gokudera said pathetically, eyes glued to the floor. "I'm so embarrassed."

Tsuna sighed. He couldn't stay mad at anyone in his family, these two especially. "Just don't do this again. Well, by this I mean... Just.... Maybe." He looked helpless. "Cage the tiger, if you know what I mean?"

Yamamoto yelped as Gokudera made a nose-dive towards the window, almost effectively ending his misery.

**supply and demand**

**pairing: yamagoku**

"You don't kiss me enough," Gokudera wanted to say, but didn't. Yamamoto kissed him sometimes when they were alone- after a movie, or between bites at a meal. Behind the school, in front of his apartment, in Tsuna's bedroom. He gave him looks all the time that made Gokudera's insides boil, shooting signals to his brain to unleash the hormones and sex drive and whatnot, but rarely was there follow-up.

it was after school one day, high school, and they were lying next to each other in the park, looking at the sky and holding hands loosely.

"You don't kiss me enough," Gokudera said finally, sirring up.

Yamamoto frowned, opened his mouth, looked concerned, but was hushed by a hand slapping over his mouth. A ring clinked against his tooth.

"You always look at me like you're going to," Gokudera complained, not making eye contact. "Should have known you're too much of an idiot to follow up on something like that."

"Gokudera," Yamamoto said around steel-laden fingers, tongue tasting the narrow slit between two fingers. He withdrew his tongue, spoke again, noting the color rising to Gokudera's cheeks. "I didn't think you wanted them. Kisses, I meant."

Gokudera lifted his hand and wiped it on Yamamoto's shirt. "It's not that at all, you freak. Just don't look at me like that, like-"

Yamamoto pulled Gokudera down suddenly, onto his awaiting arm, curling it in towards him and rolling a squawking Gokudera to his chest. He smiled up at the angry boy.

"Like that, you idiot." Gokudera huffed, blushing. He opened his mouth, closed it. Breathing lightly, breath sweet (peppermint) on Yamamoto's face, he leaned down, his body a half-sprawl all over the taller boy's.

"Want one?" Yamamoto inquired, voice light and eyes hot.

There was no verbal response.

**straight on till morning**

**pairing: yamagoku**

"We made love until morning," some couples would say, proud and warm and fuzzy and oh-so-perfect. "It was magical."

"We made love until a grenade I had lodged in my back pants pocket went off and blew me and my partner two stories down from where we started," Gokudera would have said, if he had to make such a statement. "It was painful."

At least they would have interesting stories to tell one day. (Though Gokudera would have killed Yamamoto if he told anyone.)


	2. Alphabet AF

AN: This chapter consists of Dino/Squalo drabbles. lololololtop.

* * *

**A : Aqua**

Squalo would have been a good swimmer, theoretically, if it weren't for the hair.

Dino was quiet and sympathetic as he stood by Squalo, waist deep in the pool and gingerly pulling strands of clumped hair from around his arms, his eyes, his back.

"Maybe a hair tie?" He asked after they had finished gathering Squalo's hair into one manageable portion behind his shoulders. Dino pet the hair as if it were going to spring to life. Squalo looked at him, angry and wet and still spitting hair from his mouth.

"Maybe next time you don't take me with you when you trip, you clumsy fuck," Squalo replied.

**B : Brutal**

"I'm kicking your ass," Dino gloated, fingers mashing the controller with ruthless ambition. Up, right, triangle, kick, smash, kill.

"Shut up, shut up," Squalo yelled, torso curved over his lap and hair swaying as he moved around, as if physical movement would somehow help his gameplay.

(It kind of did, actually, because Dino couldn't help but glance over, notice the way Squalo's back curved under his shirt, the way his hair shone under the light of his room-)

The match ended on the television with a spray of blood and Dino's character slumping to the dirt, beheaded and tattered.

"Rematch," he said a bit weakly, smile lopsided.

**C. Companionship**

"I didn't ask for you to be here," Squalo grouched, glaring at Dino from above swollen cheeks and white hospital garb. Dino smiled affectionately at him, fed him a little ice cream.

"You don't need to ask," he replied pleasantly, pushing a bit of Squalo's hair behind his ears. "Now, say 'ah'."

**D. Dungeon**

"Well, this is a bit kinkier than I was going for," Dino said with wide eyes, one hand still gripped around the ornate brass of the hotel door handle. "Uh, Squalo, maybe we can go back to the desk and-"

"Shut the fuck up, I can't even see around you," Squalo pushed against Dino, arms full of luggage and face full of annoyance. Dino stumbled against the doorframe and Squalo bustled around him before stopping to share Dino's dumbfounded expression. "What the fuck is this?"

"Uh, the medieval suite," Dino replied, rubbing his neck. "I didn't think it was so... literal?"

"Are those chains on the wall?" Squalo asked, walking into the room.

"Yeah, I can just go and ask for a different-"

"This will be fine," Squalo said shortly, fingering the end of the whip that was hanging from the stone wall. "Unless you're too scared, Cavallone?"

Dino's life flashed before his eyes. It was short and full of tripping over things.

He smiled, nervous and a little scared for his life. "I'll unpack."

**E. Evil**

"So, what do you do?"

"Fucking nosy as always, bucking horse. Why should I tell you?"

"I just want to know how you're doing, Squalo. It's good to hear from you, you know? Good to know that joining the Varia hasn't killed you."

"Whatever."

"So, what are you doing right now?"

"If you really have to fucking know, eating cereal."

"Eating cereal?"

"What were you expecting, you asshole?"

"....I guess something more... evil, haha. You are an assassin, now. Kids eat cereal."

"...."

"Sorry. Anyway, about next week..."

**F. Forever**

Dino knew better than to think that Squalo was going to stick around. Last night wasn't the first or last time they would screw around for a while, a chance meeting ending, somehow (as always), in Dino's giant bed.

But it would be nice, for once, to wake up next to Squalo. Rub his back, stroke his hair, kiss him awake... (Squalo was big on sweet nothings, even though he smacked Dino around for them half the time.)

With a sigh, Dino stretched out, smelling Squalo on his sheets and feeling sorry for himself for it.

Next time he would just have to tie him down.


	3. on the drive home baby, the drive home

AN: I found this on my hard drive this morning and don't even remember writing it. This happens a lot.

Music: Playradioplay - Some Crap About the Furniture

* * *

Gokudera looked all of thirteen laying on the hospital bed. His eye sockets were bruised and his lips were cracked and stitched, his earlobe ripped on the right side. There was a tube down his nose and an IV in his thin arm, creeping between gauze and scratches.

(Yamamoto fled from the room upon first arrival, stumbling heel over foot in attempts to not get sick on Gokudera's prone frame.)

They were seventeen.

__________

He will make it, the doctors said.

Though, there is mental trauma.

__________

They visited in groups. Tsuna and Kyoko, Ryohei and Lambo and Haru, Chrome and maybe Mukuro. Every day seemed brighter- Gokudera's wounds were slowly sucking back into his fair skin, bruises leeching back into his bloodstream. He was getting thinner and smaller, but there was progress everyday.

(But he wouldn't wake up, that was the problem.)

__________

Yamamoto visited whenever he could. Meals were skippable, baseball practices cut short. Flowers were so cliche, but he couldn't help but buy them every week, daisies, roses, whatever looked nice sitting next to the white hospital bed.

(Gokudera would have scoffed at him, rejected the flowers because he wasn't a girl and Yamamoto was fucking retarded. Yamamoto knew this.)

__________

Gokudera had kissed Yamamoto before he had left, before he had gotten so fucked up. Before the hospital. It had been wonderful and soft and wet and had left Yamamoto smiling and warm.

__________

Yamamoto wouldn't leave until the nurses would shoo him away.

__________

Gokudera looked so old when he finally woke up-eighteen and barely hitting ninety pounds, so weak and ow, motherfuck, full of needles.

"Shit, shit," he muttered, lifting from his pillow only to fall back with a gasp. What the hell, why couldn't he move.

He rolled his head from one side to another, wincing and cursing and out of breath from moving so much.

He wondered, briefly, where the flowers had come from.

__________

Tsuna brought him soup everyday.

Physical therapy hurt like a bitch.

Yamamoto hadn't showed up once.

__________

It was two months before the doctors deemed Gokudera fit to leave- he was a miracle, they told him. He shouldn't have survived those injuries.

Tsuna and Ryohei helped him stagger from the damnable hospital room. Fuck a wheelchair, he said.

They were nearing the double glass doors of the entrance when Gokudera noticed a familiar shape outside. Tall, lean, smiling-

"So he finally shows up," he hissed. His stomach flipped, full of semi-solid food and nerves, so sudden. Even after a year asleep, butterflies. Ridiculous.

"Yamamoto," Tsuna called in greeting as the doors slid open of their own accord, taking a hand from Gokudera's shoulder to wave. "There you are!"

"There he is?" Gokudera mirrored, frowning. "What-"

Gokudera didn't get a chance to say anything else. Yamamoto picked him up, careful yet swift. Like a doll or something, or a squirming, angry carton of eggs. Breakable.

"I'm here to take you home," Yamamoto said, looking very tired and a lot older than Gokudera remembered but very, very happy.

"Home?" Gokudera realized that Yamamoto's hands were clenching him so tight, his strong arms hooked under his knees and back trembling a little. Shaking.

"I've got a place." Yamamoto responded, walking slow, steps sure and even. "I've been working hard, since you woke up. Haha, it's small, but."

Gokudera opened his mouth, angry and disgusted and goddamn, tearing up a little. No words came out. His mouth was very dry.

"You need to be looked after, for a while," Tsuna interjected, voice small and gentle. "Yamamoto offered."

"Oh." Gokudera said. They were quiet for a while, all of them standing in front of the hospital, the sun high.

"Well, fucking take me home," Gokudera said harshly, sick to his stomach yet too happy, way too happy.

__________

Yamamoto did.


End file.
